The Last Remnant
by TheLastNate
Summary: Story based off of the Last of Us. Something you'd never expect to happen. Brand new story (Recognize Beginning.) A unique spin on it makes all the difference. Read of the new adventures that never existed before.
1. Chapter 1

A story **based** on the game, **The Last of Us** and has a **_twist_** to it which you will soon realize. Anyhow, this does include original characters. The beginning is made to be **VERY similar** (_Like as in a couple of direct quotes_/_switching around wording_) so that it basically lets you know what to expect for those of you that are like hardcore about the game. **I do not own any rights to the game itself,** that's all with Naughty Dog. Will be trying to post regularly. This is my **FIRST** time **EVER** writing something this big Chapters may come in wholes or even halves. And further more... Enjoy the story!

Chapter One: Everything Changed

"No, I don't have time for this... He what?! How do you expect for me to be able to deal with this now? We'll discuss this later... We'll discuss this later David!" Mason cut off the conversation on his phone as he walked into his house.

The house itself was part of a huge neighborhood that all seemed very identical and what some people would refer to them as cookie-cutter houses. All were brick on the outside and second stories. The crazy home owners association was really strict so they had to be all neat and orderly, nothing seemed to really give them character.

Hearing her dad entering the door, Rachel sat up from the couch where she had been waiting for him all evening for him to get home. She brushed her short brown hair out of her face and then peeked her eyes just barely above the couch at him with her big brown eyes.

"What are you doing up this late? You know you should be-" Mason began saying to her as he walked over, his voice definitely had a sense of being overworked during the last couple of days. Rachel held out a careful wrapped present and smiled at him. It was unusual for any gift of hers to not be falling apart because she was terrible at wrapping so she must have taken extra care with this one.

"I didn't forget! It's your birthday after all Dad and I wanted to surprise you!" She said with pride in her voice. Her eyes lit up with happiness in the fact that she had been able to get him a gift that could be useful for him. "I hope you like it!" she urged him open it so she could see his face.

"Oh thanks sweetie," Mason began opening the little box carefully. "Why looky there..." Mason's eyes widened as he pulled up a brand new black straight blade knife, it had to have been 4" and he had been talking about wanting a new knife for months. He pulled out a sheath from the bottom of the box and sheathed the knife and put it in his pocket instead of having to just hold the box.

"Shouldn't you be in bed? It is WAY past your bedtime!" Mason raised an eyebrow as he sat down on the couch with her and turned on the TV. Of course was very glad that his daughter had given the gift but regardless, it was nearly midnight.

"Oh please oh please oh please can I stay up a little bit longer with you?" Rachel whined as she jumped over and held onto his shoulder with excitement. They didn't get a whole lot of time together because of Mason constantly being occupied by work and several projects that always seemed to get in the way of him and family time. He sure didn't enjoy being away so much and neither did Rachel so she wanted to make the best of it.

"Alright alright! No more than an hour! You have school tomorrow!" Mason said back to her with seriousness in his voice.

"Make that two!"

"One."

"Arrgh. Fineee." Rachel grumbled a little bit and fell down into the other side of the couch as they both began to watch TV. She was happy.

Not long after that, Rachel fell asleep on the couch. Mason looked over and chuckled a little after seeing her so awake and excited and now out like a light in such a short period of time, it wasn't even one o' clock yet. With ease and also being careful, he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to her room. The room was covered in posters from her favorite bands as well as vacation photos that they had taken a couple of years back, broken drum sticks were on the ground here and there, clothes didn't quite make it into the hamper, and of course her bed was messy.

"Just like your father when he was younger." Mason sighed and said quietly to himself.

Mason set Rachel down on the bed, tucked her in and kissed her forehead. "Goodnight baby girl." He said as he turned off the lamp on the end table beside her bed and closed the door.

The phone went off. Rachel stretched a little and rubbed her eyes as she reached for the phone. Who in the world would be calling at this hour? It's a little after 4 in the morning, what could they possibly want?

"Hello?" Rachel answered the phone and sat on the edge of her bed.

"Rachel? Hey! Is your dad there?!"

"Uncle David?"

"I really need to tell him something! There's something going o-" David said with urgency into the phone and suddenly stopped as the phone died.

"Huh... Phone must be dead." Rachel said while putting it down on the end table next to the bed. "I wonder what that was all about?" She said to herself while walking out of her bedroom.

"Dad?" She called out while walking down the hall.

"Dad?" She opened up the bedroom door. The TV was on and the sheets were all over the place. He must have gone somewhere. "Where could you possibly be right now?" She said to herself as she walked over towards the TV and began watching.

"The attacks were considered as riots in the beginning but seem to be connected to the nationwide pandemic that is sweeping the entire United States. A state of emergency has been called to evacuate as soon as possible. The ones that have been taken over by this infection have been reported to show signs of aggression-" The reporter on the TV said into the camera.

"That's close by..." Rachel said quietly as her eyes widened a little.

"Get everyone out of here now-there's a gas leak!" Several soldiers yelled off in the distance of the screen.

It was too late. The entire building went up in a huge fireball of flames as the gas ignited and the building exploded, killing everyone around it.

"Uhh.. What just happened?" Rachel was beginning to get nervous.

She moved over to the window and then suddenly saw an explosion so big she could see it from the house. It took out the entire school! What the heck is going on?!

"Dad?" Rachel called out even louder now as she was getting uneasy about what was going on. Her pace picked up as she headed downstairs wondering where in the world her father could be. "Dad?!"

As she came downstairs she peered out the front window and saw several police cars speeding down the road. She didn't even want to know where they were heading, she needed to know where her dad was and find him as soon as possible. She was getting more terrified it felt by the minute. She walked into the kitchen and noticed his phone was still lying there and the light indicating missed alerts was going off several times.

"6 missed calls... 'Where the HECK are you? CALL ME' ... 'On my way.'" She read off the phone as she picked it up off the kitchen counter and went towards the guest bedroom that they used as a Study for most of the time. Every little sound seemed to slightly scare her, even the sound of the dogs barking made her jump a little bit.

She opened the door and stepped in, just in time to catch her father entering as well through the other door that was also the entrance to the deck outside. He quickly pulled back the french doors and locked them.

"There you are! I've been-" She began to say.

"Rachel! Are you okay?" He asked back. His eyes were full of concern and also urgency because he knew what the situation was so he was trying to get an immediate answer.

"Well yeah." She walked over to him and watched as he grabbed a box from the bottom drawer of the desk. It was his gun box. Inside was a .357 revolver, Mason's favorite gun that he had bought himself a few years back with some extra money he had been setting aside for it.

"Has anyone come in here?" He asked while grabbing ammo and loading the gun.

"No. Why? Is something wrong?" She asked. So much has been going ontonight she was so confused."

"The Millers. Something's not right with them." He said back to her. "I think they're sick."

"Sick? What do you mean sick?" She asked and then noticed a man on the opposite side of the door trying to get in and backed up behind Mason.

"Andrew!" He yelled out warning the guy at the door. "Honey come here, stay behind me!" Mason put himself between Rachel and Andrew as he busted through the glass door. "I'm warning you!" There was no point in even warning him. The man flung himself in an absolute rage towards Mason with the intent to kill him. "No!" Mason yelled out as he fired a shot into the man and a little bit of blood got on Mason and he then turned to Rachel after taking her into the kitchen.

Rachel stared right into her dad's eyes, they were absolutely frightened. "You.. You shot him..." She barely got out of her mouth as her voice trembled.

Mason put both of his arms on her shoulders and lookened into her eyes with total seriousness. His hands had traces of blood on them as well as his shirt from the neighbor that had just tried to kill them both. "Listen to me! There is something bad happening on around us and we have to get out of here. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah!" She nodded back to him.

Lights flashed through the front door. Someone was there.

"David's here. Come on." Mason said to her while taking her by the hand and quickly heading to the door. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. The sooner they leave and make it out of the city the sooner they will be safe.

Mason opened up the front door and looked to the right and to the driveway and saw his younger brother David coming up to get them.

Mason and Rachel both headed towards the old Ford Ranger.

"Where the heck have you been?! Do you realize what is going on around here?" David said to Mason.

"I know a little bit, yes."

"Holy crap you have blood on you too."

"Here baby, in here." Mason motioned Rachel to sit in the middle seat of the Ranger. Thankfully it was an extended cab, a little tight but it made do.

"It's not mine. Don't worry about it. We need to get out of here." Mason replied back to David while hopping into the passenger side of the truck.

"They said half of the city has been affected by all of this. They're losing their minds and attacking everyone basically." David said while getting into the driver side of the truck and starting it up.

"Can we just please go?" Mason was losing patience.

"Heard something about like it's some sort of parasite or something like that. Are you going to tell me what happened?" David looked over at him and motioned at Mason's shirt and hands being bloodied.

"Not now." Mason quickly grunted back, ending the conversation.

"Rachel. How are doing girl?" David asked as he looked back to pull the truck out of the driveway.

"Good." Rachel quietly responded, still shaken up after seeing one of the neighbors shot and killed right in front of her. "It was either him or us." She told herself in her head.

"Let's get out of here." David said pulling out of the driveway.

Rachel's eyes widened in almost a state of shock at what had happened all around where she lived. The school nearby showed no signs of life. Nearly all the brick outside was blackened by the flames which still remained in several classrooms.

Mason looked back and noticed Rachel's terrified facial expression as they passed several houses that also were engulfed in flames. The screams of people who did not get out of the neighborhood fast enough were heard off in the distance. It was too late for most of them. Hardly anyone was ready for something like this to ever happen to them.

"We'll be okay honey, we'll be okay. We'll get out of this." Mason tried to calm Rachel down then turned back to David, "How much further?"

"Not too much." David said turning the truck to the left and realizing the entire road was filled with other cars,

"Crap. This is bad. Everyone and their mother decided to take this way!"

"Turn us around David." Mason grunted. No way would they wait for this. They needed to leave NOW.

A guy in front of them got out of his car and yelled at the other people in front of them, "Hey! What's the problem here?!" A man afflicted with the infection came out of no where and attacked the unsuspecting guy and killed him.

"David!" Mason yelled out.

The infected man then turned his face towards them in the Ranger. His bloodshot eyes and face had the blood of his victim on it was just like the earlier attack at their own house.

"DAVID! MOVE! NOW!" Mason yelled out even more with urgency to get the heck out of there as fast as possible.

"I'm going! I'm going!" David quickly threw the truck in reverse and swung it around. One of the infected tried to jump on to the truck bed but only managed to scrape up against the teal tailgate before David floored the gas to speed away.

They all sighed a breath of relief to be save from being stuck in that death trap back there.

It didn't take long before they found themselves stuck in the middle of the city and the streets had people running from all directions. David began laying on the horn because people kept getting in the way.

"Where are they going?" Rachel asked.

"I have no idea honey." Mason said back. "I just hope we're going the right way now." He honestly had no clue what to expect with all the chaos going on around them.

There was a break of the huge crowds of people frantically running through the street so David decided to go faster but that was the worst thing to possibly do at this moment. Suddenly another SUV collided into the side of the Ranger.

Everything went black.

"Dad! Dad! Wake up Dad!" Rachel yelled and pushed on Mason to try and wake him up.

The truck was smashed in several places and there was no possible way to get any further with it. They had to go on foot and the only way out was through the windshield, Mason finally woke up and started kicking at the glass. Finally he managed to break the glass and pulled himself out of the totaled truck.

"Come here baby, give me your hand." Mason offered his hand to Rachel to help her out of the truck and she winced in pain.

"Are you hurt?" He asked.

"Yes, my leg." She said.

"How bad?"

"Very."

Mason then pulled out his revolver from his side holster and handed it to David, "Keep us safe!" and then picked up Rachel and they began running down the road.

The entire downtown was in pure chaos. Building were covered in flames from top to bottom and we're spreading all throughout the area.

All they knew was to run. Several infected began chasing them as they ran through the streets. David did his best to keep them off of both Mason and Rachel.

They along with several others that had followed ran into a dead end. The flames felt like they were in nearly a full 360' around them and looked to get closer and closer by the minute.

"Through here!" David called out. "Through the alleyway!"

The infected finally caught up to them. They took out the slow ones of the group like a lion chasing its prey. It was horrifying. The screams were unbearable.

Mason looked down at Rachel as they passed through the alleyway. "Keep looking at me baby! Keep looking at me!" Rachel closed her eyes and held on to him even tighter.

"They're coming through the fences!" David called out while opening another gate to another alleyway. "Pick up the pace!"

They ran through the last part of the alleyway and made it to the back of a restaurant and went in through the back while half a dozen of infected were nipping on their heels. David held the door closed with his body and yelled to Mason.

"Go! I can hold them off!"

"What? Are you crazy?!" Mason bursted out.

"Yes! You have Rachel! Just get out of here! I will meet you guys soon!" David yelled back motioning them towards the front door.

Mason busted through the front door and ran across the parking lot still holding Rachel as tight as he could. He started to run down the gravel road.

"We're okay, we're okay." Mason said to Rachel as they continued down the gravel road. Off in the distance he could hear the sounds, the horrific sounds of the infected, not even human-like anymore, knowing they were there and began to trail them.

The infected were extremely close but a gun suddenly went off. It wasn't like Mason's gun at all. It must have been an automatic gun. They looked over and noticed there were two armed soldiers.

"Freeze! Don't move!" One of the soldiers shouted at them from a distance as they both aimed at Mason and Rachel.

"We're not sick! We're not... Sick." Mason yelled back hoping the soldiers were lower their guns.

They briefly put their guns down and said something over the radio.

"But sir, there's a girl..." One soldier radioed over. "...Okay." He said back to his commanding officer hesitantly.

Both soldiers resumed their firing positions at both Mason and Rachel.

Mason's eyes got huge.

"Oh crap!"

Mason threw themselves down the hill while the soldiers opened fire at him and Rachel. Both of them tumbled down until they reached the bottom but the soldiers followed them.

Fear consumed Rachel, she absolutely froze up at the sight of having a gun barrel aiming right at her head and being blinded by a flashlight. "No... No...Please..." Her eyes began to tear up.

Mason had to think of something. He quickly grabbed a big rock and threw it up at the soldier that was staring him down with a gun as well to be a distraction to get the other soldier's attention off of Rachel. It worked. Mason had managed to get both of them distracted.

Now was his opportunity to do something. Mason grabbed the gun from his attacker and turned it on him, breaking the soldier's finger in the process, a trick David had shown him in case the situation came up. "Thank you David." He thought to himself. As soon as he had the gun in his hand, Mason shot his attacker in the chest twice and quickly turned to the other soldier...

One... Two... Three gunshots.

Just as Mason turned around to take out the other soldier, he was shot through the chest three times.

"NOOOO!" Rachel screamed out, tears started to flow like rivers out of her eyes as she watched her father drop right before her eyes.

"Don't take this personal, it's just orders." The last soldier said, holding his pistol up to Rachel's head.

Rachel couldn't control anything right now. Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest. She could hardly breathe because she was hyperventilating and soaking the top of her shirt with tears gushing from her eyes. What could she even do? There was nothing she COULD do. She couldn't run. She couldn't fight.

"Please... Please don't do this... Let me go... Let me go!" She pleaded and closed her eyes waiting for the worst.

BOOM!

Silence.

The soldier dropped. David had spotted them from the top of the hill where they fell down and shot the soldier in the head. David stood there motionless at the sight of what he saw. Four bodies were on the ground. Two were the soldiers and the other were Rachel and Mason.

David couldn't help but cry at the sight of what he saw, Mason was dead. Rachel began crawling over towards Mason very slowly. Her leg was definitely broken, if it wasn't she would have ran over to him. Every movement of hers David could tell it was hard for her because of the pain.

Finally Rachel made her way over to her father.

"Dad?" Her voice was hardly even audible.

Mason didn't show any signs of life. He had passed.

"Dad?!" She began shaking him as if trying to wake him up out of his sleep. She broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.

"DADDY?!" She cried out to the top of her lungs and held her father with her arms.


	2. Chapter 2

4 Years Later...

She looked at what used to be her secret entrance to the museum. "How did this ever happen? What happened to this place?" Rachel thought to herself. Ever since the outbreak occurred nearly all of the museums had been abandoned and left by themselves except for the ones the military occupied. Who knows what they were using them for though. Looters have gone through a long while back but not all of the things were taken, Rachel had a stash of her favorite books in one of the bookshelves on the second floor as well as an extra gun if she ever needed it, and she definitely needed it today. Anything out of the norm that was found on you or in your room, the school took away and was never to be seen again.

It was the day before their escape. Rachel and her best friend have been working on this plan of theirs for literally months. All of the careful watching of the guards swapping, what comes into the school and at what time, and even if anyone on their floor would get up and walk to the bathroom regularly. Everything had been precisely documented in their heads about when to leave this forsaken school and avoid being drafted into the military like all the other 18 year olds after they graduated.

The more carefully she looked into the hole in the wall of the museum the more she noticed something was coming out of it. It wasn't normal dust, dust just doesn't float around and stay in the air that long.

"Crap. Spores!" Rachel exclaimed and quickly pulled off her backpack. She started rummaging through her backpack until she found one of the gas masks she managed to steal from a guard last week while snooping around the school at night. The filter wasn't in the best shape but this had to do.

Rachel ducked and entered through the hole in the wall and into the museum. There was no other choice, she needed that gun in case anything went south that night, this was the only way.

The whole museum was mostly quiet. Here and there the sounds of water could be dripping into the little puddles that had collected where the roof had collapsed and let in the rain. Ceiling tiles caked the bottom floor of the museum and graffiti from a couple years ago still on the walls. Rare artifacts were missing, the only thing left were the massive scrapes through the floor after they were dragged away, probably to be sold on the black market at some other huge city. Who knows. The only remaining things were a couple of books lying around here and there, broken glass and the not so useful artifacts that Rachel didn't even know why they would even be there in the first place.

Rachel turned on her flashlight and began walking towards the steps slowly. Each step seemed to take an eternity but she wanted to make sure whatever was in here didn't hear her. Every moment made the boards underneath her squeak just a wee bit more than she would like but eventually she made it up the stairs.

Something moved.

"It had to have been the boards." She thought to herself.

The sound got more and more distinctive the closer she made her way to the room where she normally kept her books. She couldn't tell what it was though. Some sort of groaning sound.

Rachel reached for her side and pulled out a hatchet from her make-do holster she managed to sew on to her pair of jeans so it was easy to access. Although keeping this hidden back at the school was very difficult so she had to bury it. Wasn't the best for it but having a weapon of any weapon available at the moment was very helpful.

Rachel crept over to where the room was and put her back to the wall and poked her head in between the door frame.

Right in front of her stood a man. Not an ordinary man. He was making very rigid moments and seemed to twitch around back and forth and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. The man seemed to stumble around in circles acting as if he was being tormented by something.

The man didn't seem to notice her surprisingly enough but she wasn't going to take her chances. Rachel had to strike, it was either him or her and she didn't know how much longer she could remain unnoticed.

Rachel took her chances and charged him with the hatchet.

"YAHHH!" Rachel yelled at the top of her lungs and swung the hatchet at the infected man, hitting him clear in the neck and sending blood gushing out of his neck and making a horrid, horrid sound as he gasped for air and tried to reach for his attacker until he finally collapsed onto the hardwood floor of the upstairs.

Maybe it wasn't an idea to be so loud. Rachel's eyes became huge. Down the hall outside the room more noises started getting louder and louder. Sounds of tormented men and women just like the one who Rachel killed but something was different. Not only did she hear those sounds but also a clicking sound, terrifying enough to send a chill down the spine of the toughest guy in the entire city and it was getting closer to her by the second.

Rachel quickly grabbed for her favorite books and put them in her backpack and grabbed the gun. It was a basic 12-gauge shotgun, it definitely showed its age with scrapes and gashes in the stock and was relatively dirty all over. Thankfully there was a couple of shots in it.

There was no time for figuring out a plan or strategy, it was plain "Get the heck out of here" time. Rachel swung around and ran to the doorway and quickly looked out to see if she could see what was around her at what her best options were. Across the hall on the opposite side of the stairs she could barely pick out what the infected were doing.

"They're searching the rooms for me." Rachel said to herself with amazement as her pursuers went from room to room. Although this was a terrifying situation she still somehow seemed to find it very interesting.

And this is when everything went downhill. A couple of the infected noticed her and began running towards her position and even some to flank her exit.

"Crap! This isn't good! I gotta get out of here!" Rachel began to move towards the exit. "Maybe she could just blast them all out of her way." She thought.

She ran down the hall and realized there was too many of them to simply go through them. There was no way she had enough ammo for all these guys. She turned and realized that she had another group behind her. These things were trying to corner here and have no way of escape.

"No! No way are you doing this to me you freaks!" Rachel yelled and ran over to the railing and looked down. It was kind of a far fall. She noticed a big pile of ceiling tiles and insulation that she could use as landing spot. "Crap. I've never jumped this high... Just like the asian movies, right? Yeah... Ninjas or whatever do this all the time!" Rachel jumped off the wooden railings and went for it.

Rachel landed, but not with difficulty of course. A huge cloud of smoke came out of the insulation as she fell into the big pile. She brushed off her pants and triumphantly smiled thinking she was perfectly fine.

Once again, this was not Rachel's day. The infected soon realized what was going on and quickly rushed down the stairs to catch her. The terrifying and gruesome sounds were getting closer and closer until they sounded like these things were breathing down her back. Moans, screams and clicking was the only thing that Rachel could hear and were so loud she couldn't even think as she ran like a bat out of hell for the exit.

"Almost there. Almost there." Rachel said, her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest almost.

Rachel rounded the corner and made it back to the place where she originally had come in. The exit was so close. The infected were about a little more than an arms length by now.

Rachel made it to the wall with the hole in it. She ducked down and began to crawl through the hole to the other side. She could see the light from the outside not to far away. The nightmare was almost over! She reached for the pile of wood scraps for something to pull herself up out of the hole and out of this death trap of a museum.

She reached for a huge plank...

"Freaking Crap!" Rachel felt something grab her leg her leg and started flailing. One leg then two, Rachel had to hold onto the huge piece of wood with both hands to keep herself from being dragged back into what could have been the place of her death.

"Get off of me!" Rachel screamed. She couldn't use her shotgun because of the possibility of the blast taking her legs off. "No! No! No!" She screamed as she kicked her shoe into the face of her attacker, hisses and shrieks rang through Rachel's ears, it was unbearable. She spotted a huge nail that kind of resembled a railroad nail.

Rachel reached back and slammed the nail into the infected's head as it nearly broke Rachel's eardrums with the ungodly shriek it produced. It retaliated and bit directly into Rachel's leg.

"Arghhh! Son of a biscuit!" Rachel yelled out and reached for her leg. She was desperate now. Blood started to run down her leg. In a desperate attempt, she pulled herself out of the crevice in the wall and walked over to the massive metal desk that was to the side of the hole in the wall and began to push it over to cover the entrance.

Everything started to darken. Rachel's vision became blurry and the ground began to move and liquify. It's like Rachel was on a drug trip. Everything began changing colors and distorting before her very eyes. Just then Rachel turned around.

Everything around it was moving but the creature itself. The ground looked like it oozed and bubbled but the creature moved closer and closer. The sky had changed to dark red while it continued to walk slowly over to her. Each and every step it seemed to produce an obscene clicking sound. She finally saw what had been producing such a horrid sound.

The man... or what this thing had used to have been was covered in a fungus all over his face making him completely blind and it's teeth looked mangled and jagged all over the place. It stumbled towards Rachel and every second got closer and closer.

"Clicker..." Rachel couldn't move. Her entire body had froze up. She wanted to move but it seemed like heavy weights were holding her down and not letting her move. This felt like the end. She felt hopeless.

Finally the Clicker reached the top of the stairs and then rushed at her. Rachel still couldn't move even though she tried with all her might. The almost demonic creature went for her neck.

"AHHHH! GET AWAY FROM ME Y-" Rachel screamed bloody murder as it was about to rip her throat out.

Everything went black.

"NO!" Rachel screamed and jumped up out of her bed with her knife in her hand with the facial expression to kill whatever she was yelling at.

Rachel sighed and sat back down on the edge of her bed and looked at the knife in her hand. It was the knife from her dad, she kept it with her all the time to remind her of him.

She rubbed her tired eyes and realized it was light out. "It's just a nightmare Rachel, calm down..." She said to herself and lifted up her pant leg to look at her leg, revealing an old bite mark that was 3 weeks old.

Well... Almost a nightmare...


	3. Chapter 3

"Time to get up!" Rachel said to herself, brushing the hair out of her face that seemed to have gone ballistic somehow during the night.

She looked around the room and realized it was near to the bare minimum essentials. A measly single bed, clothes scattered across the floor and a small desk that was covered in several books. It was relatively small but it was all that she necessarily needed at the moment.

Rachel walked to the door and reached for the doorknob and looked up and noticed a sticky note that was placed basically eye level with her on the door that said "Deliver packages today to Peter."

"Almost forgot!" Rachel said to herself as she ran back to her bedside. She pulled up the comforter that hung really far over the edge, revealing 3 small packages that were tightly sealed together. She didn't really know exactly what was inside but it was her job to move supplies back and forth between different people in the city along with the person she was sharing the place with.

Rachel left her room and walked into the middle of the little run-down apartment. In the middle of the apartment was basically a small kitchen, there were no appliances left, only cabinets remained and off to the side there was a two person table and a little couch. She never really found it necessary to actually make the place really nice because this place was simply just a place to sleep and not much more. It's not like she ever intended for this to be a permanent house or place of living in the area of work she was involved in.

Rachel walked over to the edge of the kitchen counter and grabbed an apple from the bowl and noticed the door of the other bedroom off to the side opening up.

Out stepped a teenage guy, he ran his fingers through his dark blonde hair trying to make it look somewhat acceptable for the day. He had on a plain dark red flannel shirt, dark blue jeans and a pair of running shoes that had definite signs of wear throughout their lifetime. He was whistling and stopped when he realized that Rachel was standing there in the kitchen with an apple in her hand.

"Oh, hey Rachel." He said to her and smiled, noticing she was wearing a purple flannel shirt, dark blue jeans as well as running shoes. "You wanted me match me, aw how sweet!" He teased with his laughter.

"Shut up! I'm pretty sure I was up before you." Rachel replied back trying not to sound too sassy.

"Yeah I definitely heard you yelling earlier so thanks for the extra alarm clock there." He said walking over to grab an apple for himself.

Rachel growled back at him. "Are you ready to leave yet Chris-Hey wait what is this?!" Her tone totally changed with she noticed there was some dried blood on his face. "Come here." She grabbed him and wet a napkin and started cleaning Chris's face before he could react.

"Hey! Wait! No what are you doing?!"

"You got blood on you!"

"So?!"

"Why in the world are you getting into fights by yourself?! Who did this?"

"It was just a small group of guys don't worry about it! Needless to say, they are still alive, don't worry. They won't be messing with me anytime soon." Chris smirked back and had a face of pride.

"You are ridiculous." Rachel smacked him in the face and walked over to her backpack and placed the packages from the counter into the backpack. "And with that note... Let's go!"

Chris sighed and grabbed his backpack as well and followed behind Rachel out the front door.

Rachel stepped outside and looked up into the sky and the buildings that surrounded the two of them. As she looked around her eyes danced back and forth between the buildings that were now covered in dark green foliage and broken windows and torn down walls in certain sections seemed to be a very common thing around them. Their apartment was the only one around the area which actually had someone living in it. Basically most of the furniture in their apartment was scavenged from the nearby apartments and buildings that had been abandoned.

Chris bumped into Rachel and continued walking, "Let's go slowpoke! We're on a schedule today missy!"

"I hear ya, I hear ya." Rachel grumbled back and started walking behind him.

They began to walk through the back alleyways. It was so quiet. Nothing but broken down and abandoned buildings met them along the way. Occasionally a cat would heard but Rachel hated cats so they wouldn't be around for long. Rachel was always a little tense when it came to walking from their safe house pretty much and into where most people lived and the strongest part of the city where the military had basically total control of everything. She never knew if anyone would end up finding out where her and Chris lived and wait until this person could kill them and take everything from them, it wasn't that uncommon now days, the city life was almost as dangerous as outside the walls. (So they've always been told, Rachel thought it may be possible however.)

They came to a dead end.

"Where'd you put the ladder at?" Rachel asked Chris.

The both of them began searching for the ladder in the middle of what used to be an old playground that had been overgrown with different plants and trees. Chris was looking over by a couple of broken down cars and Rachel was looking around the old equipment.

"There's no way he would leave it over here." She thought to herself as she was moving bushes back and forth to look for the ladder. "I think this is..."

"-Found it!" Chris called out, maybe just a little louder than he should have.

Chris set it up against the wall that led up to the second floor of a building. There was a huge hole in the side so it was perfect and easy to get into.

"After you!" Chris gestured for Rachel to go up the ladder first as he held it for her to make sure it was secure.

"Oh you're such a gentleman, Chris." Rachel replied sarcastically as she went up the ladder and into the open room that was the second floor and began looking around for something around the broken down bookshelves and trash scattered around on the floor.

"What are you looking for?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow showing curiousity what Rachel was doing.

"Nothing." Rachel sighed and began walking towards the long hallway that wrapped around the building. There was something that Rachel thought was there but she couldn't find it and it bugged her a little bit. She began to hum a tune and air drum in the air while she led the both of them down the hall. The building definitely showed some age and the wallpaper was all messed up. Once again, this used to be populated city but so many people were either killed off by the infection itself or by other gangs or the military. Rachel gave a big sigh and brushed her brown hair to the other side of her face. "Almost there." She said as she opened the door in front of them. She was getting tired of such a difficult life she had just to survive and get by day and day.

Rachel stepped into the room. Inside the room was hardly decorated if you could say that at least. The walls had once been bright and colorful with a light green but now were faded and torn up, who knows what caused that to be exact. The floor was hardwood but what used to be a pretty and polished light hardwood floor now showed significant wear throughout the majority of the room. The floor was mostly covered in parts of the ceiling that had fallen, a layer of dust covered it as well with most of the other objects in the room. Someone sat at the couch in the front of them facing the fireplace and was making sure it didn't go out. The couch looked out of place because it was the only thing in the room that looked the newest and had a coffee table in front of it with boards underneath. The guy facing the fire had a small beard and was a little bit older than Rachel and Chris. He wore a light jacket and a pair of jeans with combat boots. The guy looked up and over when he heard the doorknob moving to see who it was as he grabbed the shotgun laying next to his leg.

"Oh. It's just you, Rachel." The guy said. "You're a little earlier than I expected."

"Yeah no worries man, we made good time this morning and I wanted to get this over with." Rachel replied back walking over to the coffee table.

"Alright, good. Just be safe and make it back in one piece, okay?" He replied back while helping her move the coffee table back and moving the boards out of the way, revealing a secret door that seemed really deep. The bottom wasn't even visible, a ladder was the only option down.

"We got this, you know us." Rachel flashed back a smirk as she pulled out her flashlight and secured it onto her backpack shoulder strap and began to descend down into the dark. Chris followed behind her but was quiet the whole time until they got to the bottom of the ladder. They looked around to what was an underground pathway that had lights every now and then to make sure you could somewhat see where you were going.

It was about a five minute walk until Christ finally spoke again. Normally Rachel wasn't one to openly speak out unless she felt it was necessary or she just wanted to ramble, but for Chris being really quiet was a little out of the norm.

"Something about this job just seems different than usual, I can't explain it. I feel like it's going to go wrong for some reason." Chris fidgetted with his hands and studdered a little.

Rachel turned around and leaned into him playfully, "It's not that different than what we do most of the time silly. We sneak past the military guards. We do some awesome jumping across buildings-that's always fun you know that, then we make it to the head honcho guy of this group that wants the drugs. Get paid. Make our way back home and good as usual. It's just a little different of a route, that's all!" She turned around again and walked forward into the end of the path that ended up and into a big storage room and turned on the lights. Rachel walked up to one of the walls that was covered in different materials and weapons that they had accumulated through trade with the different jobs that the two of them had completed in the past.

"Yeah I know, it's.. I don't know, something's going to happen, that's all I know." Chris said while taking off his backpack to pack more gear into it from the wall.

Rachel grabbed her bow and several arrows and put them across her shoulder along with her backpack which now had more food and camping supplies incase they got caught up out late at night and needed to survive to make it back to the house. She also grabbed her hunting and throwing knives and put them in a side pocket.

"Hey." Rachel said putting her hands up onto Chris's shoulders. "Look at me. We'll be okay, we have eachother's backs like always and nothing is going to change that. Be great as always and we both will be safe and there'll be nothing to worry about."

Chris grabbed a rifle hanging from the wall and slung it over his shoulder and put a couple of smoke bombs they had made last week in his backpack as well as some extra ammo, there could never be enough ammo, seriously. He pulled out his green notebook that was in his bag and looked at his journal entry, "Tell her today!" it read. Chris made a determined face and closed the book, stuffed it back into his backpack and walked over to Rachel who was tieing up her running shoes and looking ready to go. He kept having the conversations of her mentioning about after this job that they'll not have to worry about having to scramble around for money for quite a while compared to the stuff they did in the past. There was something he needed to tell her and it was bothering him the longer he held it to himself. With the uneasiness also about today wasn't a great combination with this other thing on his heart.

"Hey Rachel-"

"Alright! Let's suit up!" Rachel jumped up and kinda gave him a little butt-check, "Ready to go?" She flashed her big smile at him.

"Yeah. Let's go." Chris responded back trying not sound normal and that nothing was up. Right now wasn't the time apparently, Rachel was too focused about heading out.

Rachel noticed Chris wasn't himself and reached out and hugged him tight, "After this we can relax a while, okay? Let's finish strong and then it'll be over! Get some rest, I'll wake you up when it's time to go!" Rachel smiled and laughed.

Chris walked over to the couch and not long after laying down, was sound asleep...


End file.
